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Sunday, November 9, 2014

Review: Suspicion by Alexandra Monir

“There’s something hidden in the maze.”

Seventeen-year-old
Imogen Rockford has never forgotten the last words her father said to
her, before the blazing fire that consumed him, her mother, and the
gardens of her family’s English country manor.

For seven years,
images of her parents’ death have haunted Imogen’s dreams. In an effort
to escape the past, she leaves Rockford Manor and moves to New York City
with her new guardians. But some attachments prove impossible to
shake—including her love for her handsome neighbor Sebastian Stanhope.

Then
a life-altering letter arrives that forces Imogen to return to the
manor in England, where she quickly learns that dark secrets lurk behind
Rockford’s aristocratic exterior. At their center is Imogen herself—and
Sebastian, the boy she never stopped loving.

I was super excited to receive this book from the publisher a couple of months ago. Instead of picking it up right when I received it, I had to set it aside. Usually, I try to stay away from reviews of books I'm getting read to read because I don't want it to influence my own thoughts and feelings on it. But this time, one of my friends on Goodreads basically said it was a waste of time. That really made me take a step back and wonder about reading Suspicion at all. But a couple of days ago, I decided to give it a shot. And I'm glad that I did!!

Hopefully by this time, you've read the blurb for the book and you kind of know the premise of the whole thing. This girl (the main character, Imogen), looses her parents in a horrible fire and she moves to NYC then something happens and she's propelled to go back to England when she's older. There are tons of twists, turns and surprises along the way that really keep you on your toes. The characters are endearing and the plot is pretty good.

And this brings me back to what others are saying ... I just don't get it. I had prepared myself for a disaster and that just isn't what I came away feeling like I had endured. I really enjoyed this novel. Far more than I had expected and I found myself sad that it was coming to an end. I was hoping that it would be open-ended so that the story could continue in a following novel but unfortunately, everything was buttoned up pretty securely.

This is not a fast moving story, it's slow on the build up but I wouldn't want to have read it any other way. I think that it takes time with some stories to build up the suspense in a way that coincides with the characters and that is what Monir did with this one. I was just pretty impressed. I actually would have given this one 5 stars if I hadn't kind of picked out what was going to happen about 3/4 of the way through and even then there was a major twist in the end that really surprised me. All in all, a great novel, one I will read again and I'm excited to see what else this author has up her sleeve with upcoming novels!